Bounty Hunter, the hunter of your bounties.

Forewords

"There is a price on all their heads."

Welcome to my guide about this hero, Bounty Hunter, almost always known as BH, a carry-type hero who is very fun to be played. I am gonna try to make this guide as simple as possible, because playing like a pro is simple and playing simple is how pros play.

WHEN SHOULD I PICK BH?

"No job is too big, no fee is too big."

Of course you can pick Bounty whenever you want, but there is one particular condition that it is STRONGLY recommended for choosing Bounty Hunter: for countering any invisible heroes. This includes the famous Rikimaru, Bone Clinkz, Mirana, Lanaya, Phantom Lancer, or even heroes with SHADOW BLADE as their core item such as Shadow Fiend.

WHAT ABOUT HIS SKILLS?

Shuriken Toss

It is like.. shuriken. Yea, kind of shuriken in the world of ninja. It deals great amount of damage (for a carry, the damage dealt is kind of huge) and mini stun, so you can use this skill to help you chasing heroes and mainly for canceling deadly channeling spells such as Pudge’s Dismember or Witch Doctor’s Death Ward.

Jinada

I don’t know what the fck Jinada means, but what I know is that Jinada is one hell of passive skill—it gives you everything you need as an assassin: multiplied damage, slow, and chance for you to avoid some attacks.

Shadow Walk

This is a simple active skill: it disappears you for certain amount of time, and deals some damage if you break your invis with a hit.

Track

And.. yeah. This ultimate is the main reason why your friends counts on you, without this skill BH means nothing. This skill is the main reason why you have to be in the battle field. This skill is the main reason you will be remembered. This skill is the main reason you will be called noob if you can’t use this skill—not the other skills. And this skill is the main reason you are called.. the BOUNTY Hunter.

It gives you and your team more bounty, more gold. Once you put Track on enemy, and he dies, you will get bonus gold—whatever you do, if even you do nothing. Because of this ultimate, Bounty Hunter can be rich in no time, and that means he is getting easier to be his true potential, to be a carry—one of the most important requirements to be a good carry is to have a good amount of gold in your pocket, isn’t it?

...and Track is the main reason why Rikimaru and his co. hates you so much. It reveals an invisible hero for pretty long duration. And even the casting range of Track is very far, so you don’t have to get very close to your target (and your enemy doesn’t realize that he has been Tracked).
Okay, so far I have heard that he has decent skills for combat. But.. how do exactly I use those skills?

STYLE OF PLAY

Before you learn about his style of play, you have to understand enough about the character of Bounty Hunter. As you can see from his name, he is drawn pretty much like an assassin in the dessert: sneaking in silence, suddenly stab someone in the darkness, and then run away, stealing some golds. He is greedy in gold, his only mind is how to get gold from enemies and knock him down, and the world never sees or heard his footsteps.

That is how you have to play with Bounty Hunter: disappear, hit, and re-disappear again. You have to sneak around the battle field, waiting for good chances to blow serious damage to enemies and do some, uh, kill steals (but since you are a carry, everyone will be OK with that, trust me).

Do not ever try to be seen almost all the time, playing like Rambo, going forward without any care, and assuming that you can do all the stuffs alone like a tank. NEVER DO THAT.
Here is the list of the steps:
1. Before a war begin, spam as much as possible your Track. Your main target is someone who can turn invisible such as Nyx, or someone who need a good spot to do his job such as Pudge. Spam on them. Otherwise, you will be called a noob.
2. Your team initiator does his job, or someone stupid do something stupidly forward.
3. Shadow Walk.
4. At the half duration of your Shadow Walk’s cooldown (or your team has done tone of damage in one enemy), hit someone. Let Jinada shows its effect.
5. Right after you hit him, release your Shuriken.
6. Run away so no one can touch you.
7. Shadow Walk again.
8. Sneak around again waiting for hitting chances.
9. Hit someone again, or use your Track again.

So, that’s it. Let your friends do the war, and sneak around them. If your team is about to lose the war, get away, find some safe spots. Don’t die. You are carry.

ITEM EXPLANATION

This brings us down to item explanation: which item should I have in my slots? As you know from previous section that his playing style is hit-and-run, so it is a simple logic that you have to be able blowing serious damage in one hit. So, that concludes that you are seriously suggested to have items which can increase your damage drastically.

PHASE BOOTS
I prefer this kind of boots rather than the other types. +24 Damage in early game is huge, and it also gives you chasing/escaping mechanism.

BATTLE FURY
Go rush this item as soon as you have already had Phase Boots. Besides it gives you more and more additional damage, it also provides you good mana regeneration since you need good mana capability for using Shuriken.

BUTTERFLY
This item gives any agility heroes everything: uh, well, you can see the description in the item itself. They are too great for Agility Type heroes. And also, this item allows Bounty Hunter to be seen a little bit longer.

BLACK KING BAR
Strength, damage, and magic imunity. What do you ask for more? No one can touch you.

STYGIAN DESOLATOR
Much players consider this as BH core items. I kinda agree with that, the reducing armor effect works together very well with any BH’s skills.

ORCHID
Shows up in battlefield with silence is really annoying for your enemies.

DIVINE RAPIER
Seriously, it is fun to have DR in your pocket. Even if you are Bounty Hunter.

Wait a minute, where is the other items? I see that those items are kinda expensive to buy. Yes, sir. And you have Track, which means you have no problem for having any one of them in no time.

ENEMIES

Bounty Hunter works pretty well with almost any type of heroes, and any heroes will be very thankful for Bounty Hunter’s skills. So I don’t to discuss more deeper about Bounty’s best friends; I want to tell you more about his true enemies instead.

DUST/GEM/SENTRY WARDS
Every hero will be your main threat IF they bring one of these items in their pocket. Seriously, Bounty can do almost NOTHING is he is easily revealed. He is a hunter after all, isn’t he? A hunter must not be seen by his prey, right?

SLARK
The only reason that you may proceed to hate this guy is his first skill: Dark Pact; it negates all buffs that happen to him, including Bounty’s Track, so it is a useless thing to cast Track on him.

SLARDAR
Unfortunately, Bounty is not the only one hero that can reveal invisible units only by his skill: there is Slardar, ladies and gentlemen. So Slardar can cast his ultimate on you, and you will be naked all the way along the war. One trick to counter this case is that you have to do Shadow Walk first before Slardar could see your nose.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT TRACK...

So, you have known now that Track is a great skill and useful in many ways. But, nothing is perfect, and same thing goes to Track.

You only can cast Track on any heroes BEFORE they go invisible.

So that means you can only Track Rikimaru, for example, ONLY IF he is on visible state. And in MOST cases, Rikimaru shows up WITH his Smoke Screen on you, which means if you are unfortunately INSIDE the Smoke Screen, you can’t use any of your skills. And not only Rikimaru, there are several heroes that need to be invisible before they enter battle field such as Nyx or Shadow Fiend.

This means counter-productive, and you will wish that you have picked other heroes.

There is no other way to face this condition, except bringing Dust/Gem/Sentry inside your pocket. Carrying gem is the most risky choice, but it is the most flexible way to re-counter the case we have discussed above.

So if you carry gem inside you (or dust and sentry), you can Track the semi-permanent invisible heroes like Rikimaru easily, before they pop-up causing some chaotic situation.

Never get Battle Fury on Bounty, its a waste of gold. During laning phase, his Jinada can help you last-hit easily, so getting the creep gold won't be a problem. You're suppose to make the first two, three hits count the most so getting cleave is quite pointless, getting MKB is even better.

Good and simple guide. It doesn't bring anything new I feel, but for newbies this might be useful. I feel that orchid is a waste on BH unless you are playing against AM or QoP and you want the kill.

Orchid can help Bounty greatly due to his severe lack of mana. Since he will be spamming Track and Shadow Walk, along with Shuriken Toss (well, all his skills), he would need something to help him recover his mana when finding his next target. Silence is very good against most heroes, especially those that can somehow pound Bounty's face in with their skills.

@TKH_96 : Yea sure I've made this guide for noobs. Pros don't even need a guide, eh? >.< So I've tried making this guide as simple as possible. But it seems that I have made it way too simple, so yeah I will edit this. Thanks.

@Yasutsuna: Well, Battle Fury never disappoints me when playing Bounty, so I am pretty confident to put this item into my guide. All Bounty need is a good damage, and Battle Fury is one of the easiest high-damage-item to have. Imho.

You DON'T need damage... Jinada and shadow walk will cover that for you.
You need utility items, drums, vlads, orchid, bkb... You just need to stay alive and track as many people as possible, giving your team a good gold advantage.
Even phase is kinda overrated... I usually go tranquils into bottle for earlier ganks once I hit lvl 6, this way I never ever have to go back to base

You DON'T need damage... Jinada and shadow walk will cover that for you.
You need utility items, drums, vlads, orchid, bkb... You just need to stay alive and track as many people as possible, giving your team a good gold advantage.
Even phase is kinda overrated... I usually go tranquils into bottle for earlier ganks once I hit lvl 6, this way I never ever have to go back to base

+1, bounty hunter is usually considered the "aura-hero" building vlads and drums to support the real carry in the team. Battlefury is a creep-farming item and bounty hunter needs to farm heroes as much as possible ;). Battlefury delays his impact by too much and puts more pressure on your carry. Also I dont agree with the startup item picks, since a stout shield and two sets of regen is mandatory in the (for bounty hunter only viable) solo hard lane. The item selection is incomplete (BKB, orchid etc).
Overall I think you get the idea of the bounty hunter. For basic pub play I guess this is sufficient and a viable build. However for more advanced play you have to add some things ;).
Keep up the writing!

Dumb ability build.
Jinada is totally useless on level 1, except for last hits, and you can do them without Jinada anyway.
First you'll always need Shadow Walk, to escape, then at least 3 levels of Shuriken Toss, since it has a really high damage in early game, allowing you to insta kill some squishy heroes.

Bad choices in the items build too: BH is pretty squishy, so you'll always start with 3 branches, then upgrade them to magic wand.
Then, get Vlads, after them, always a Desolator.
Why not a Battle Fury? Simply because you won't need that mana and health regen. You described how NOT to play BH: spamming the shuriken. It's something that should never been done, it's useless. Shuriken must be used to finish enemies who are trying to escape.
You want some mana? Get a Medallion then! You'll can also use the anti armor ability when ganking.
So after a Desolator, you'll buy a Monkey King Bar instead, or a Skull Basher if you can't get enough gold.
Finally, the butterfly.